According to Deloitte’s 2021 research, 70% of South Africans are spending all their income, or more income than they earn, every month. This means there is still a lot of work to be done to educate South Africans on how to sustainably manage their finances. Enabled by our financial education funding partners, Avo Vision has trained approximately half a million people in financial education. As the journey to a million begins, Sanlam (one of our funding partners) visited Avo Vision to get feedback from different community members whose training in Gauteng was sponsored by Sanlam.
The purpose of the visit was to find out whether the participants in Avo Vision’s financial education workshops were making better decisions and living bigger lives because of what they learned. One of the participants, artist Thandi Sonkwena from Randfontein, says that she does not receive a steady income every month, but because of the training, she has learned to work around any amount she gets. In addition to this Thandi said that “This programme has helped me a lot with how I use money. I used to think that for a person to be able to save they must have a lot of money. Now I know that even with a mere R100 you need to plan how much you will use and how much you will save. I recommend this training”. Stories like Thandi’s are a sign that if more consumers are educated about money matters, many lives and livelihoods can be improved.
In Enoch Godongwane’s (the minister of finance) 2022 budget speech he announced new taxes for individuals and businesses in different sectors. The seven percent tax for small businesses means that there is a higher need for financial education which can then be the key to unlocking economic participation and wealth creation. Avo Vision Consumer Financial Education (CFE) programmes not only cover personal financial education but also address small business financial skills and entrepreneurship principles. Mr Muphuthumi Ntloko owns a small business in Tembisa. He says that the Avo workshops changed the way he was running his business. He now manages his money better. He says that “This course changed my attitude to business. I used to be a boss instead of a leader. I would take money from the business any time I wanted to and that affected my profit. Now, after attending the Avo training, I save daily and take money to the bank weekly to save”. Mr. Muphuthumi further says that this programme had a great influence on his business growth and wishes that this programme reaches more people because he thinks it is life-changing.
Avo’s ‘Money Fo’ Sho!’ programme teaches people how to manage money, save money, budget, do financial planning, deal with debt, manage credit, and many other useful financial topics.
Avo also offers tailor-made modules designed to educate consumers before they make life-altering financial decisions. This training partnership with Sanlam has definitely yielded improvements in participants’ lives.
We believe that everyone needs a little bit of help and guidance when it comes to money matters. Our trainers work daily to make it easier, acceptable, and comfortable for everybody to talk about money matters. Be part of the impact by connecting with us at engage@avovision.co.za